When you say “I know…” something about someone, you are giving them the evil eye, a.k.a. the ego eye, or the ego “i.”
What we are actually saying when we say this, is “I know a memory I have about something that (I perceive) happened in the past.” When you claim to know someone’s thoughts, feeling, or purpose, you are doing what in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) is called “mind reading.” The factual truth is, unless someone tells you their experience, thought, or purpose–you don’t know.
In spite of that fact, it is common and acceptable practice in the unconscious masses to mind read so automatically that you don’t even know you are doing it. So you mind read someone in the moment, and file that false information in memory, and then call up that past lie later, as truth now. “Well, he always does…” now becomes not only a limitation in the now, but a forecast about the future–but it is really just the past! You’ve taken a belief about them, formed in the past, and generalized it out into the future. (Note that generalization is a cognitive thinking error.)
Notice this is all about you, not them.
Don’t give someone the evil eye.
What if the old perception and mind read was not true in the beginning? Oh what ugly, senseless webs we weave. (And I can promise you that in over 90% of the time your mind reads are wrong. Why? Because mind reads are yours, they are about you, they are your thoughts and fears. They have nothing to do with the other, and they blind you to the other.)
“But what if it’s true?” my clients sometimes exclaim. Imaging or fearing it’s true doesn’t help. Why act on fears? Don’t you want to actually know if it’s true? Who cares if what you think is true in the moment? You still don’t know. A better question is, “IS it true?”
Additionally, if it was true in the past or is true now, who says it will be true in the next moment? Everything and everyone changes, even as we stick them in the quicksand of the stinky thinking in our minds.
Do you want to have you mind read, do you want be right and make them wrong–or do you want to have true, delicious open intimacy and love? Let me tell you, reality and truth are much kinder than the fearful violence of mind reads.
Give the evil eye the exit door, once and for all.
So, what to do instead? Recognize you are having a mind read, and become curious about the truth–and ask. Simply ask with nonjudgmental curiosity. Oh the places you will go! The things you will learn! The love you will make.
Abandon, drop or question all mind reads because when we freeze-frame people in the past, we limit others severely, ourselves, and our relationship with them. What you do to others, you do to yourself.
Make this your new mantra: “I don’t want to know my thoughts or fears about someone, I want to know their truth.” It is the only path to true intimacy, and inner and outer peace.
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